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Statement Of Charles Winterwood
Environmental Protection Agency
Aging Initiative Public Listening Session
Iowa City, Iowa
April 15, 2003
Charles Winterwood
Chair
White Pine Group, Sierra Club
Chair
White Pine Group, Sierra Club
I am Dr. Charles Winterwood. I am a retired physician and Chair of the White Pine Group of the Sierra Club.
89% of Iowa's cancer causing air pollution comes from coal power plants. 99% of Iowa's arsenic emissions are from coal powered plants. The vast majority of Iowa's mercury emissions are from coal-powered plants. Mercury is bioconcentrated in fish. Because Senior citizens are advised to eat fish one to three times a week they are at increased risk of mercury poisoning.
During the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games there was a reduction in auto use. This resulted in a 22.8% decrease in asthma admissions to emergency rooms and a 41.6% decrease to hospitals. Similar decreases occurred in admissions for chronic lung diseases experienced by our senior citizens. Designing our cities to encourage bicycle and pedestrian traffic will lower air pollution and obesity and thus chronic heart and lung diseases as well as type II diabetes.
The nontherapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in livestock feed creates antibiotic resistant food-borne pathogens to which senior citizens are particularly susceptible.
Recently a study in Helena, Montana has shed new light on the risk of second hand smoking in the older population. Cessation of smoking in bars and restaurants in HELENA LED TO A 50% DROP IN HEART ATTACKS OVER THE 6 MONTHS SMOKING WAS BANNED IN BARS AND restaurants. More cities need to ban smoking in restaurants as Ames and Iowa City have done to save Senior Citizens from heart attacks. (Since this testimony the Iowa Supreme Court has overturned Iowa City's and Ames' ban on smoking in restaurants). Under the Bush administrations "Senior Death discount", a 70 year old's life is assumed to be worth 37% less than that of a younger person. Using this mathematical trick, the Bush administration has found a new way to undermine America's most important environmental safeguards by lowering the cost of senior citizens who die as the result of pollution. Let's ensure everyone can grow up in a world that doesn't value one life less than another.